AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)04/08 Report--

According to the latest figures released by Nissan China today, Nissan sold a total of 87902 new vehicles in China (passenger vehicles / light commercial vehicles / vehicle imports) in March 2022, down 32.6% from a year earlier. Among them, the passenger car sector (Dongfeng Nissan / Qichen) sold a total of 67910 new cars, down 33.5% from the same period last year; in addition, Nissan sold 298863 vehicles in China in the first quarter, down 15.2% from the same period last year, of which 242931 were sold in the passenger car sector, down 16.9% from the same period last year.

For the reason for the sharp decline in sales, Nissan China attributed to "COVID-19 epidemic, cross-industry shortage of raw materials and other external factors." "persistent chip shortages and supply chain disruptions caused by the intensification of the COVID-19 epidemic have had a lasting impact on product production and sales," said Chuang Ping Yamazaki, senior vice president of Nissan Motor Co., chairman of Nissan's China Management Committee and president of Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd. "We will make every effort to gradually resume production and sales in the next few months, there is uncertainty and increasing competition in the supply chain in the short term, and the Chinese market remains strong in the long run," it said. "

At present, Dongfeng Nissan's products on sale include Xuan Yi, Teana, Canda, Bluebird, SUV Qijun, Xiaoke, Jinke, and Loulan, but due to a large decline in sales, Nissan announced the sales of only three models, and all of them are not optimistic. Specifically, the seventh generation Teana sold 11679 new cars in March, while the new and old Xuanyi sold 30240 new cars, and Xiaoke contributed 15234 to Nissan. In addition to the above models, including Panda, Bluebird, Jinke and other models have not announced the specific sales, especially the upgrading of the new Qijun, since the launch of the sales continue to be a mystery.

In fact, the sharp decline in Nissan's sales in China is understandable, as Honda, one of the Japanese car companies, has also fallen sharply. Data show that Honda's cumulative sales of terminal vehicles in China in the first quarter of 2022 were 353786, down 9.3% from a year earlier, of which March sales were 101061, down 33.2% from a year earlier. It is not difficult to see that the shortage of parts and components has a relatively serious impact on the traditional fuel vehicle market. Of course, for Nissan, its development in China is also beginning to have hidden worries.

According to the data released by Dongfeng Nissan, at present, only Xuanyi, Teana and Xiaoke are actually supporting enterprise sales, while Qijun, which had previously maintained monthly sales of more than 10,000 vehicles, seems to have doomed Qijun's defeat after it decided to carry the three-cylinder plane in the latest generation of Qijun. Prior to this, four-cylinder Qijun month sales of more than 10,000 is basically the norm, but also ranked in the domestic market SUV monthly sales list of the top 10, the cumulative sales of 175177 vehicles in 2020, after the replacement, Xinqi Jun sales directly fell to the bottom, from tens of thousands of monthly sales directly to the level of 4000, January-February 2022 sales of 3250 vehicles, 1762 vehicles, the future development is very worrying. Of course, in order to reverse the situation, Nissan decided to resume the production of Lao Qijun, but the new car was handed over to Zhengzhou Nissan, and according to the existing information, the old Qijun failed to restore the market.

In addition to the Nissan brand, Infiniti has also made product updates. February 28th, the new generation of Dongfeng Infiniti QX60 officially launched, the new car launched a total of 6 models, the price range is 39.98-619800 yuan. It is understood that QX60 is Dongfeng Infiniti's first medium-and large-scale SUV, and it is also the third domestic model after Q50L and QX50.

March is the first month of full sales of Infiniti QX60, but the auto industry is concerned that forecast sales should be very low. From the market point of view, the medium and large SUV with the highest sales volume is the ideal ONE, while the sales of the large SUV in traditional fuel are not high in the market. In February, for example, Volkswagen took 3049 vehicles, Volkswagen Touang 2655 vehicles, and Cadillac XT6 1820 vehicles, which destined that the Infiniti QX60 could not become a volume model. From the price point of view, Infiniti QX60 price 39.98-619800 yuan, the standard model is Cadillac XT6 and other luxury medium and large SUV, may have a certain advantage in product power, but brand awareness is Infiniti's biggest disadvantage.

Of course, Nissan is already feeling the pressure, especially as electrification has become the trend of future car development, forcing Nissan to speed up the layout of this market. On November 29th, Nissan officially released its Vision 2030. According to its plan, Nissan plans to invest 2 trillion yen ($17.6 billion) in electrification over the next five years to accelerate the layout of electric-driven products and technological innovation. In the next five years, Nissan will launch 20 all-electric models and models with Nissan e-POWER technology; by fiscal year 2030, the company will launch 23 electric-driven models, including 15 all-electric models, with Nissan and Infiniti brands accounting for more than 50 per cent. According to the plan, Nissan's electric-driven models in China will account for more than 40 per cent of total vehicle sales by fiscal year 2026, compared with 75 per cent in Europe, 55 per cent in Japan and 40 per cent in the US.

At present, Nissan has encountered a bottleneck in the development of the Chinese market, with only three best-selling models, a growing gap compared with Toyota and Honda. Nissan is in urgent need of more hot-selling models. However, under the development of electrification, Nissan has been unable to develop new fuel models, and Nissan has invested hundreds of billions of yuan to accelerate the promotion of electric drive product layout and technological innovation, whether it can achieve its ideal goal, it still needs to be verified by the market.

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